15503: Blanchet: Fw: Murders and fire at Peligre's hydroelectric power plant (AHP) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>

AHP

Murders and fire at Péligre's hydroelectric power plant
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Péligre, May 7, 2003 -(AHP)- Péligre's hydroelectric power plant was
attacked
Tuesday night by a group of armed men, who killed two security guards and
put
fire to the control room.

The commando was made of more than 20 armed men who also manhandled the
operators.

The control room that was set on fire is used to control motor parameters
and
send power to the dispatching department at Delmas 33 in Port-au-Prince.

It is not yet possible to evaluate how much damage has been done, but the
fire kept burning in the control room until mid-day Wednesday.

A delegation of Péligre's power plant officials and police officers has
already been on the scene to see what happened.

The union president, Lyonel Jeune, refused for now to make any comments on
the attack, only saying that the people who did this are not human.

According to other sectors, this is a political action planned to embarrass
the government.

Other sectors rather see an act of sabotage to kill the company's total
capacity.

Péligre's power plant, which is located in the Plateau central, really got
back in business last week when the authorities asked, surprised, the EDH's
general manager, Jules André Joseph, why there was a black-out right in the
middle of the rainfall season.

As a matter of fact, the improvement of the past few days in electric
current
distribution was due to the 36 megawatts provided by Péligre from its
capacity of 54 megawatts.

Thermal power stations of the metropolitan area that provide part of the
energy available need power to run. However, the company's inaptitude to get
its customers to pay forces the State to permanently supply it with free
fuel.

The Péligre attack will be the main subject at a meeting this Wednesday at
the Primature, the AHP has learned.

AHP 7 May 2003 11:30 AM